


Silent Night

by koffkoffstyles (blametheone)



Series: Koff Koff's Christmas Countdown [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas fic, Fuck Steve, M/M, bucky barnes is not a fragile bean and can rise whenever he wishes, but what happened to sam, i dont know what the fuck happened here but its not good, not steve, set during the very very beginning of aou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 03:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8952520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blametheone/pseuds/koffkoffstyles
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes was not sitting on his windowsill in civilian clothes with a bag on his lap and a smirk. [OR: Sam is in New York at one in the morning, Christmas Day, and a certain missing person takes it upon himself to pay him a visit, in the festive spirit of giving and togetherness.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO I KIND OF ACCIDENTALLY STOLE THE 'BUCKY SHOWS UP AN DOESN'T WANT TO SPEAK TO/ABOUT STEVE' THING FROM "All of the Stars Right out of the Sky" by permashift which is, by the way, brilliant and you should read that instead.
> 
> so, christmas? is like, three days away? whoops? i was going to just make this 'holiday season' and add some new-years related ones but now that i'm going away over new years i can't be bothered keeping up with themes. i will return over 2017, and update more christmas-y ones.
> 
> and finally: i don't know what the fuck happened to this fic but it wasn't good. proceed with caution.

“Fuck Steve Rogers,” Sam Wilson muttered to himself, rolling his eyes as he let his coffee cup fill slowly.

Or maybe it only felt slow because he was mad and tired and needed coffee.

But seriously, one would think that a guy who lost his ex-dead crazy psycho assassin best friend could at least help out a little more in the search for said ex-dead crazy psycho assassin best friend. Instead, Sam was currently the one doing all the looking under rocks (and getting his head smacked around in the process) and searching restricted data files and spending all of his spare time tracking likely hot-spots the Winter Soldier was going to hit – while Steve fucked around with Tin Man and Ginger Ninja and Sokovian castles.

Whether Steve was even helping or not, Sam was still up at one in the morning trying to figure out why the hell he suddenly had a file from Sharon saying that one of Bucky’s handlers was just shot up big time two weeks ago and slyly enough that no one noticed for a whole twenty-four hours – meaning there was at least a ninety-seven percent chance it was Bucky himself – in Pasa-fucking-dena, Cali-fucking-fornia. When all of the possible places they had tacked on their board were all in Europe, at least, and mostly contained to East Europe.

Why the hell was the Winter Soldier suddenly in the US? And, ironically, why was Captain America was in Sokovia while this was happening? And why was Sam still stuck in New York trying to figure it all out?

“Fuck him way up in his perfect fucking asshole, with a cactus,” Sam leant his elbows onto the bench and let his face fall into his hands. “No lube. Scratch that bitch up. And then keep him up to two am with no coffee, see how he likes it.”

“It’s only one-twenty, you have coffee, and trust me, he won’t like it at all.”

Sam shrieked at the intruding voice, jumping a foot in the air and diving behind the bench, hands immediately going for the gun at his hips and shit, _there was no gun goddammit now what?_

“Please,” the voice called out. “Don’t shoot. There’s a gun on the coffee table if you want to feel protected...”

Sam frowned, gaze focused on the tiles under his feet. The voice was male, that was for sure, but the accent he couldn’t quite place. It sounded almost like Steve’s, the old-style, over-done Brooklyn street punk, but it was warped and twisted and the guy was practically whispering anyway so it was hard to-

 _Wait_.

Sam popped his head up over the edge of the bench and _holy fucking shit – no_. Absolutely _not_ , this was _not_ happening to Sam, not tonight.

James Buchanan Barnes was _not_ sitting on his windowsill in civilian clothes with a bag on his lap and a _smirk_.

But he _was_.

“What in the hell are you-” Sam sighed into his forearms, crossing them on the benchtop while he knelt on the tiles. “No, no, rewind. _How_ are you here?”

Bucky lips quirked into a smile, but it was off. His eyes, Sam noticed, they were gorgeous. But they were still dead. He was trying, Bucky Barnes was pulling his old, charismatic mask back on, but it was only a mask. The cheeky smirk didn’t sparkle in his eyes like it should have. Sam had even seen it himself, not in old footage – the early 40’s did not have good enough tech to capture that – but in some of Steve’s art that he had reluctantly handed over when they began their manhunt.

Sam had seen Bucky in person once, and the only time he actually got a good look (when he wasn’t being distracted by bullets by his ear, or a steering wheel being ripped out of his hands, or his wings being pulled of his pack) was when he flew down to kick him in the back of the head. The only time he really ever got to see Bucky’s face was through Steve’s pencilled memories. And it looked like this.

Minus the scruff, though. But Sam, personally, did not mind the new addition.

“Well,” Bucky peered over the edge of the windowsill, the outer edge so that he was looking down at the garden below, “I climbed?”

Sam rolled his eyes, and hard. The man was sitting on his windowsill. He was an ex-assassin for the world’s biggest, ugliest, longest living Nazi-based organization, a fugitive from the law, and had been frozen for the better half of the past seventy years, and now he was sitting on Sam’s windowsill. And on top of that, he had the gall to be _funny_.

He was so Steve’s best friend.

“Okay, look-”

“Did you know it’s Christmas?” Bucky began fiddling with his on fingers, picking at the gunk under his nails. “I probably haven’t celebrated Christmas since… what, forty-one? No, nineteen-forty.”

Sam sighed again. He had been looking for this guy for a whole year, was in the middle of figuring out the Winter Soldier’s movements and he magically shows up? He was probably hallucinating. But, he might as well go along with it, hallucination or not.

“Yeah, I know it’s Christmas,” Sam stood, properly, moving around the side of the bench and leaning against the end of it. “So?”

“ _So_?” Bucky’s eyes widened, “What do you mean ‘so’? It’s Christmas!”

“Okay!” Sam held up his hands, “Okay! It’s Christmas. Yay?”

Bucky’s jaw fell, and for a second Sam saw the guy Steve talked about: the animated big-brother Bucky who never grew up. The guy with a sparkle in his eye and a smile that lit up any room. Just for one split second, Sam found Bucky.

“Sam, it’s _Christmas_ ,” Bucky pushed, one hand gesturing to emphasise his point. “Snow and presents and decorating the tree and-”

“Oh my God,” Sam crossed his arms. “Steve didn’t tell me you were actually _eight_.”

Sam saw the flinch in the corner of Bucky’s left eye when he said Steve’s name. He hadn’t realised his life-long best friend was going to be a sore spot, but Sam wasn’t awake enough to bother with the why’s and how’s of that.

“Wait a minute…” Sam’s head lifted. “Dude, I was making coffee. When did you distract me from my coffee?”

Bucky rolled his eyes this time, chuckling. “About the same time you were fantasising about sharp things inside Captain America’s ass?”

“Right,” Sam nodded, going back to his coffee maker. He was going to finish what he had started, thank you. “Do you want coffee?”

Bucky took a minute to process the question before he shook his head slowly.

“So, what, you’re going to stay on that windowsill?” Sam gestured generally towards him, “It’s _cold_ , man, and you’re letting the cold in.”

Sam watched Bucky hesitate. He didn’t want to get off the windowsill. But it was cold, and if Sam’s knowledge of psychology was any good, Bucky hated the cold. The cold hit him too close to home – to close to cryo.

And, sure enough, Bucky slid inside the house, without a word, closing the window behind him and putting his bag down on the floor over his feet.

The mask he had been putting on, the program adapted from choppy memories of the Bucky Barnes he once was, had fallen. The charming guy who had teased Sam from the windowsill had retreated back to the further folds of the new Bucky’s twisted mind, and the emptiness that was in his eyes took over the rest of his body language as well.

“How do you have it?”

Bucky’s head raised, frowning, as Sam moved back around the counter to the coffee machine to put a new pot on – his cup was cold.

“Excuse me?” Bucky replied, remaining exactly where he was but following Sam with his shoulders.

“I said, ‘how do you have it?’. Coffee, I mean. How do you have your coffee,” Sam gestured. “Cream? Sugar?”

Bucky loved sweet everything, Sam knew that. Another gem from Steve’s treasure trove of Bucky Barnes related knowledge. And when he said ‘sweet’, he meant ‘hot chocolate with three sugars with vanilla extract and whipped cream and chocolate with a plate of cookies on the side’ kind of ‘sweet’. The sugar ration nearly killed him, apparently, from glucose withdrawals.

But, Sam also remembered Steve saying something about Bucky having everything sweeter than a candy store – except his coffee. Something about Bucky being “such a damn paradox” because he needed at least four sugar-cubes to drink almost anything else, but he would down a cup of black coffee, no sugars, every morning, to wake him up for work.

Bucky was staring at Sam, mouth seeming to have stopped working.

“The coffee was so you could stay up to find me,” Bucky said, voice low and rough. “Why don’t you sleep?”

Sam just snorted, not needing to gesture to the newcomer in his house as a reason for him to stay up. He didn’t need to say out loud that he was infinitely intrigued by Bucky, or that he wanted to listen to all of his memories straight from Bucky himself, not a second-hand reimagining. He didn’t need to remind Bucky that Sam wanted to keep him here as long as possible and would keep them both awake until Steve arrived in a few days if he had to.

“I’m good,” was what he said, instead, pushing the fresh cup of coffee towards Bucky and letting him sort out the add-ons for himself.

Bucky started sipping at it, straight and black.

The silence between then and the time Sam finished making his own coffee was painful.

“So, you like Christmas?” Sam asked slowly, noticing the ever-so-slight quirk in the right corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Steve never mentioned-”

“Can we not talk about Steve?”

The beginnings of the smile, no matter how premature, had fallen instantly. He opened his mouth to apologise, but Sam held up a hand. He got it.

Steve Rogers was Bucky Barnes’ childhood best friend, stuck by him in their teen years, and they managed to find each other even in the war. They had been inseparable, and knew every single tiny detail about one another – from how they like their coffee to the mole on the back of Bucky’s knee that Sam was yet to see but had heard about. Twice.

But the problem with being captured, forced against your will to be an assassin, brain-washed and electrocuted thousands of times is: you lose those memories.

Steve Rogers, to this Bucky, was not a childhood best friend he knew everything about. He was a confusing blur of the Steve that the old Bucky knew, the mission the Asset knew, and the Steve that the new Bucky feels like he should know, but doesn’t. Steve, also, expects him to remember. He doesn’t know that’s what he’s expecting, and Sam’s heard him say a thousand times that, “I don’t care if Bucky never remembers, I just want him back,” but he does care. Sam can see it, whenever they talk about Bucky’s amnesia.

Steve wants the old Bucky back, the charming guy from the streets of Brooklyn who had not been brainwashed and tortured into forgetting him. Steve had not yet come to terms with the fact that Bucky was never going to be that person again.

And that was a terrifying pressure to put on Bucky, to a) try and see Steve for Steve when he has three different versions of Steve running around in his already painful brain, and b) to know that all Steve wants is for Bucky to be the person he was, and to know that he can never go back to that, not fully.

Sam Wilson never met the old Bucky Barnes, was not even alive to meet him until Steve and Bucky both should have been old and grey. Sam first met Bucky when he was the Winter Soldier and, y’know, _trying to kill him_ , so Sam Wilson is more than happy to accept Bucky for the new person he is, with no expectations of his past self to live up to. Sam also has a very clear knowledge of Bucky being the Winter Soldier, so there’s no having to tip-toe around omitting and emitting, around triggering subjects of conversation.

Sam knows the Bucky he is now, at least for the most part, which makes him a much more comforting friend to go to than one he thinks he remembers but doesn’t really.

Bucky can learn about Sam, because he’s never known him before, rather than try and remember everything he once knew.

So Sam got it.

“Okay,” he smiled. “Then why do you like Christmas, Jim?”

Bucky’s expression dropped for a second and his head whipped to face Sam.

“Did you just call me-”

“Hey, no side-tracking,” Sam chuckled into his mug, “Christmas, remember?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, the faint ghost of a smile hitting the edge of his lips, and his gaze landed back on Sam with a warning look. Sam was so calling him ‘Jim’ more often now.

“I like Christmas because…” Bucky scratched behind his ear absentmindedly. “Well… presents, for one.”

Sam couldn’t help but smile because of course that was a part of his answer, _of course_.

“And…” Bucky hummed. “I like the cold. No, not the cold – feeling cosy under blankets, is nice, and hot chocolates on Christmas eve and… being with family, although I don’t know what that’s like now-a-days. Um. The decorations, y’know? The Christmas trees and tinsel, and Santa and everyone connecting over the same holiday tradition.”

Sam chuckled to himself. “Bucky Barnes, sucker for the Christmas spirit. You sound like a movie, you know that?”

 

\---

 

Sam lost track of time between Bucky telling him why he liked Christmas and the sun rising several hours later. They were talking constantly between, and while once or twice Bucky would clam up at something Sam said, their conversation flowed smoothly.

When the first light of dawn broke through Sam’s window, it was Bucky who noticed it and brought it up first.

“Merry Christmas, Sam,” he had whispered softly, looking out into the sunset.

There was a nervous edge to Bucky suddenly, and Sam had noticed him reaching for his bag. Bucky was leaving. He was a ghost, by nature, a shadow in the night. Not to be seen by the daylight.

He had left with a steady, firm, “Do not tell Steve you saw me.”

Sam had rolled his eyes, “Can you tell me where you’re going?”

Bucky had just smiled and left through the window, not telling Sam anything, not a word.

 

\---

 

Sam kicked his feet against the floorboards, looking out at the sun that was now shining relatively bright for its early morning awakening.

“Merry Christmas, huh?” he scoffed to himself, fingers picking over the non-existent spot on the side of his coffee mug, long empty and longer cold.

Sam had to leave soon, get in his car and drive to his family’s house and have a big Christmas lunch and kiss his new baby niece and exchange gifts.

“Bucky Barnes,” he muttered, forcing himself to rise up and move towards the bathroom to get ready to go. “What a fucking Christmas miracle.”

 

\---

 

Steve returned the day after Boxing Day, asked Sam how the search was going, and didn’t notice how tense Sam got at the question, easily taking the information about Pasadena as truth and not asking further than, “So you think he’s in the US?”

To which Sam had answered. “He could be anywhere, by now. But you know what? I think if he wants to be found, he’ll find us. He’s not fragile and hiding scared somewhere, Steve. I think he knows what he’s doing.”

Steve shrugged him off, determined, and Sam brushed the reaction away.

And the flash of long brown hair he saw sneaking around the corner at Stark’s party? Definitely just his imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> [i was 1000 words in before i realised that it’s cold in new york on christmas. living in the southern hemisphere be like.]
> 
> quick thank you to my sister who made up bucky's reasons for liking christmas, and by that i mean i used her reasons for liking christmas and tailored them ever so slightly.


End file.
